"Suppose, Alexander, he _had_ gone. Suppose he had taken his seat in Congress, instead of staying here. He would have become a figure trusted there, too--but how different your life would have been. There would have been schools and--well, many things that you have never known." "I hain't hankerin' fer none of them things," she said. Then with a sudden paroxysm of sobs that shook her afresh, she added, "All I wants is ter hev him back ergin!" But Brent was thinking of things that could mean little to her because she lacked the background of contrast and comparison. He was seeing that beauty and that personality in the social life of official Washington; seeing the triumph that would have been hers--and wondering what it would have meant to her in the balance of contentment or unhappiness. Of course had Aaron McGivins begun his political career young enough, every trace of mountain illiteracy would long ago have been shed away by the growing girl. As for her blood, there is in all America no other so purely Anglo-Saxon. "I rather think it's a pity he didn't go," Brent mused aloud. Then he added, "Now that he's--not with you any more--Alexander, there is something you must let me say. You've never thought about it much, but you have such a beauty as would make you famous in any city of the world. Men will come--and they won't be turned back." For the first time since Aaron's death the old militant fire leaped into her eyes and her chin came up as she flared into vehemence. "Like hell they won't be turned back!" But Brent smiled. "You think that now, but Alexander, nature is nature and there must be something in your life. You've played at being a man and done it better than many men--but men can marry women, and you can't. Along that road lies a heart-breaking loneliness. Sometime you'll see that, since you can't be a man, you'll want to be a man's mate." She shook her head with unconvinced obduracy. "I knows ye aims ter give me kindly counsel, Mr. Brent, but ye're plum wastin' yore breath." The man rose. "After all, I only came to say good-bye," he told her. "You aren't going to keep men from loving you. I know because I've tried to keep myself from doing it--and I've failed. But this is really my message. If you do change your ideas, for God's sake choose your man carefully--and if you ever reach a point where you need counsel, send for me." Along Fifth Avenue from Washington Arch to the Plaza, Spring was in the air. Trees were putting out that first green which, in its tenderness of beauty, is all hope and confidence. With the tide of humanity drifted Will Brent, whom business had brought from Kentucky to New York, but his thoughts were back there in the hills where the almost illiterate Diana, who knew nothing of life's nuances of refinement and who yet had all of life's allurements, was facing her new loneliness.